SouthCoast Today: OUR VIEW: Baker voters beware

Charlie Baker is going to be asking the voters of Southeastern Massachusetts to turn from Gov. Deval Patrick and the Democrats in the November election.

He will be counting on convincing voters here that he is the savvy business leader who can dig the state out of a frightening financial and economic mess.

That might be a tough sell all by itself for the former head of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, which was placed in receivership by the state's insurance commissioner shortly after he became its chief executive officer and which needed nearly $250 million in a state-sponsored bond issue to remain afloat. He also was the state's secretary of administration and finance during part of the Big Dig project.

We will leave that discussion for another time, though.

What
voters need to know now is that if the Patrick/Murray administration
loses, New Bedford and Fall River lose their last, best hope for
commuter rail to Boston.

Despite the painful fiscal crisis that
has gripped the state for two years, no governor has been a better
advocate for Southeastern Massachusetts -- New Bedford in particular --
than this one. He has been here more often and listened more closely to
the region's elected leaders, economic development officers and fishing
industry representatives in three years than his Republican predecessors
did in the prior 16.

And Baker's at best lukewarm support for
the region's commuter rail project offers few of us comfort that this
most vital economic development initiative will go anywhere under his
administration.

For too long, Southeastern Massachusetts has been
forced to accept the scraps that fall from the only table that really
has mattered to Beacon Hill: Boston and the wealthy suburbs nearby.

The
Republicans' real constituency is in those wealthy suburbs, so none of
us should be surprised that Baker doesn't much like the preferred rail
route that would send trains along the so-called Stoughton route and
through the wealthy communities that line it.

Nine months must
pass before voters will elect the next governor, and much will happen
between now and then. But one thing has been clear for two decades and
is clear now: The Republicans will not do much, if anything, on South
Coast Rail if they can help it. They would rather talk about other
things, but the other things that GOP governors have talked about
haven't helped much in old mill towns like Fall River and New Bedford,
where unemployment and underemployment are chronic.

It is up to
us in Southeastern Massachusetts, therefore, to force the conversation.

South
Coast Rail and the future of historic old cities like New Bedford and
Fall River must not be left out of the discussion during the 2010
election season. We must force statewide candidates to take positions on
issues that are central to our future.

If we do not, we should
not expect them to pay attention to us after Election Day.